amittelem

Thinking...

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

"Munger has a standard which I think is immensely useful.  He says that if you want to hold an opinion, then you must be able to refute it better than the smartest person you can find who disagrees with you.  If you can’t, then you don’t deserve to hold it.  This is a good standard which you can use to judge whether you really understand something.  If you can do this, then there is a chance that you understand this thing."

From the Q&A of "The Practice of Value Investing" by Li Lu.
https://t.co/Qv7bFKvCid

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@ZuckermanRoy אבל אם קאטר מזיזה את העולם.. (אל תחסום אותי. אבל כאילו זה לא נראה לכולנו קצת מוזר שזה ברור וידוע לכולם בכל מקום בכל מדינה.
ועדיין זה קורה In plain sight..
Weirder and weirder)

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

@NataniaMarshall “There’s nothing antisemitic about spreading a blood libel”

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Every day I see something I am convinced I hallucinated.

[Eylon Levy @EylonALevy]

If an American politician said, “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but Israel asked me,” Vance’s base would go ballistic.

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@YonatanAdiri תודה יונתן. הוזמן מהספריה.

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

"This response of yours is the turn of the whole session, so let me start there — because you just independently derived the single most important operational idea in the field, and I want to sharpen it rather than congratulate it."
#besttutorever

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

Sharp analysis

[Dalia Ziada - داليا زيادة @daliaziada]

An important framing to understand what is happening in Washington right now is that the debate is no longer primarily about the Middle East. It is increasingly about America itself.

Vice President Vance’s remarks on the Iran MOU today were revealing in this regard.

Vance's message was reassuring in that this is only a time-bound MOU, and the U.S. still holds all the cards and can reimpose pressure on Iran if Tehran violates its commitments.

Knowing how devious this regime is, I believe the U.S. pressures on Iran will eventually snap back. This brings some hope and mitigates frustration.

But beneath Vance's reassuring message lies a divide among American policymakers... not between those who believe Iran is dangerous and those who do not. Actually, everyone agrees that Iran is a threat to the U.S. as much as it is to Middle East neighbors.

The divide, however, is between those who call for accommodating (rather than engaging) hostile powers, like Iran, and those who believe not every threat or hostility justifies another lengthy, costly American intervention overseas.

Viewed through this lens, the central question is whether Iran can be deterred, contained, and managed without dragging the United States into another Middle East conflict that distracts from America’s economic and domestic strategic priorities.

This also helps explain the growing willingness among some American leaders recently to distinguish between U.S. interests and Israeli interests; something that would have been far less common in Washington only a few years ago.

The challenge, however, is that Washington has tried versions of this "containment" approach with the IRGC before. Efforts to manage the Iranian threat through diplomacy and economic incentives often ended up strengthening the regime and expanding its threat to neighboring territories, rather than moderating its behavior.

I do not think the direct investments by Gulf Arab states (as suggested by VP Vance today) would make any difference in making Iran less hostile to Israel or the United States. It is an ideological hatred that neither money nor diplomacy can reverse!

That is why the stakes of this very American debate, although justified, extend far beyond the current agreement to the future role of the United States in the Middle East and the nature of its relationships with both allies and adversaries across the region.

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@WashingtonExp גם 2. כל המתקפה על ישראל זה אחלה דרך ל��חזיר קולות הביתה לקראת בחירות האמצע

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@YonatanMelech שמעת פעם את הסיפור על השוטר הטוב והשוטר הרע?

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@curisct מי שמצביע משפיע ;) יש לך את אייזנקוט וליברמן.

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@curisct מדוע לא?

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@curisct צריך לחשוב על טובת המדינה והעם היהודי קודם. הפסילה הקטגורית של הליכוד בגלל שביבי בראשו היא טעות קשה. אין ליהודים מותרות כאלה. לא שזה קשור לשיחתנו. אבל זה מה שיש לי לומר

[Winston Marshall @MrWinMarshall]

Only 100 years ago we ruled 1/4 of the world

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@curisct ��פסד בבחירות האמצע לא סביר. הוא גם לא הפסיד עדיין.

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@oritperlov עדיף להתמודד מול טורקיה מאשר מול כל הפלגים האלה. לא כך?

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@Duduoppe מה זה שיח ציבורי? כמה אנשים בכלל קוראים? אי פעם היה שיח ציבורי איכותי? לרוב הציבור באמת אכפת להבין מורכבות? התשובה העצובה היא לא. בכל חברה. בכל זמן. אנשים מחפשים שיגידו להם מה לחשוב. כי לחשוב לבד זה קשה מנשוא

[Niall Ferguson @nfergus]

“Before I join in the swelling chorus of former Obama and Biden officials rushing to write op-eds denouncing the MOU, or the Middle East hawks decrying it as an instrument of U.S. surrender, it is important to remember that a piece of paper by itself is not a peace. For peace is made as much by actions as by words—and as much by the unforeseen consequences of diplomacy as by the intended ones.
“The Trump administration prides itself on its realism. That is why key figures seem to feel no compunction about pulling the plug on the Israelis, and deeply disappointing many of their Arab friends in the Persian Gulf, too. Yet Trump is as much at the mercy of unpredictable historical events as [Woodrow] Wilson before him.
“Right now, Trump’s 14 Points look as wretched as Wilson’s 14 Points looked splendid in 1918. But who can be sure what lies ahead? What if the most perilous time for Iran’s horrible regime is not when it is under intense bombardment, but when it makes peace and smells the approach of boatloads of money? What if, at the same time, it turns out that the IRGC’s equally blood-soaked confederate, Vladimir Putin, is in deeper trouble than we realize with his war in Ukraine? And what if the reason oil prices didn’t go even higher than they did in the past four months is that China’s domestic economy is in free fall, as some numbers indicate?
“What if, in short, President Trump’s luck holds—as it has held so often throughout his 80 years of often reckless risk-taking?
“In the end, the wording of this lousy memorandum of understanding may matter less than the second- and third-order consequences of Trump’s Iran war. The economic consequences to date have certainly been far less damaging than I foresaw earlier in the conflict. Maybe, just maybe, the same will turn out to be true of the geopolitical consequences.”

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

זה לא תרגיל. הוא יחליט על עסקה סופית כמו שהחליט על עצירה עכשיו, לפי התנאים בשטח באותו הרגע. אם בבוא הרגע היא תהיה מספיק טובה עבורו הוא ילך על זה, אם לא ימשיך ללחוץ ולנסות להביא לעיסקה טובה יותר. אחרי בחירות האמצע הוא יוכל להביא עסקה טובה יותר מעכשיו. שלושה דברים: פוליטיקה פנימית אם לוקח את בחירות האמצע קשה לי להאמין שזה יהיה מכשול משמעותי. 2. אולי באמת צבאית ארה"ב נמצאת בדעיכה או בעיה משמעותית יותר ממה שניתן להבין. קשה להאמין אבל יותר אפשרי. 3. עוד יותר אפשרי זה חישוק על ידי יתר השחקנים בזירה הבינלאומית ברמה שמסכנת את הסדר העולמי החדש שלו ועולה יותר מאשר עיסקה טובה לארהב עם איראן.
אלא הווקטורים

[amittelem @AmitTelem]

@neriya_fisch @Amit_Mandelbaum וואלה לא טיעון טוב. לנהל את צהל זה מספיק ניסיון בניהול. ולנהל חברת הייטק זה לא הכרחי בשביל אותו הדבר. ולהגיד ששבענו מגנרלים זה אולי אני מסכים ברמה האישית.. אבל זה לא הגיוני שכל גנר�� הוא פסול מהנהגה פוליטית רק כי הוא גנרל.. זה לא טיעון טוב